Hello !

I hope you're all doing well.
Sorry I've been absent.
I'm fine, just taking some time out... going to have (in my mind) a tea party in the cubby-house my Dad built for me way back when:

Cheers for now,
Love Sue xx
P.S. I hope no one minds but I've turned comments off for this post... I may not hear them as I set up my tea things!

A kindness ~ Happy PPF!

Hello!

I'd like to share the art and thoughtfulness of A, our nephew's wife, who lovingly created this beautiful hand-sewn cushion for me:

My photos don't do it justice but the brown and red of the gumnuts are created out of a soft leather and the leaves in fabric.

It was a most beautiful surprise on many levels...

... because A was inspired to create it from a card I had once made for her.


She did an enlarged photocopy of the card and cut the shapes as a template for her piece:

She did several enlarged photocopies and gave me one of those also.

I love my cushion so much!

Every time I see it I smile ....
Thank you Dear A xx

Linking to Eva and Kristin's Paint Party Friday, where the happiest of artists gather... and everyone's welcome! 

Daily happinesses

Hello!

We've been enjoying beautiful Autumn days  -  sunny, with a coolish nip in the air as the sun goes down.
I hope your days have been equally as beautiful in their own way  😊

A happy little camera effect of the sun shining through the trees as I snapped the carpet of leaves from our Tibouchinas

A lovingly made gift:

Can't hide my grin... as I show off my gorgeous shawl crocheted for me by our Dear Daughter.  It's so cosy.  Best of all, it was made with love and feels like a nice warm hug xx

Painting is also a happiness:

Acrylic on watercolour paper.
I followed the instructions of Angela Anderson and added my little bit extra

Here's the 'before' shot

... and completed, done in Watercolour, ink pen with a gold border

These are pre-prepared cards.  Some can hang around for a while, but its nice to have the backgrounds done and dry in readiness for when the urge to paint hits :D) 

My version of a rainforest!

Linking to Paint Party Friday 

Now to breakfast!

A daily habit for years now ... a morning milk shake with raw egg and fruit.
Always a happiness!  

A chookie update:

This is Chookie (aka Henny Penny).  She came to us by chance at the beginning of this year (I posted about it here).

Over the past few months, Chookie has become broody quite often and, now that we have another 4 hens (Alice being one of them)  and a rooster, we've placed fertile eggs from Alice underneath her. She's got one more week or so until they're due to hatch.
Chookie is so keen to sit on as many eggs as she can that we're pretty sure she encourages Alice to lay her eggs in the same laying box that she's in.  To get around that,  I've marked the originals with a pencil and then I can remove any freshly laid ones that she's gathered underneath her:

I waited until Chookie went for her daily dustbath and feed before I marked her eggs... she's a very protective mother already and dishes out a sharp peck when I check her for extra eggs!

Meet Roosterboy and Alice

All the chooks give us a lot of happiness each day.  Their antics are so funny at times, and they have both of us well trained ;D)

Birdy Happiness:

Here's a lucky shot through our kitchen window!
A male Satin Bower Bird giving a gift of a flower to the female.
It's part of their mating ritual and we're sure his bower must be nearby.

Evening settling down:

The Galahs like to settle for the evening in these treetops just over from our back door.  They're noisy but I enjoy watching them.
I took this photo quite a few years ago but I love it and, watching them again the other day, I remembered it and thought I'd share it here. 

Linking  to Stewart's Wild Bird Wednesday:

Floral Happiness:

My darling hubby built window boxes on our house for some of my pot plants.  These two photos are of one of them.

I often forget to water this particular succulent and yet it still gives   such a beautiful display.  Aren't they marvellous plants!

A knock on the door this morning:

and it was our neighbours, from across the street, popping in to say hello and with a gift of these beautiful flowers for no particular reason other than an act of friendship!  What a lovely way to start our day :D)

Linking  to Riitta's Floral Bliss:

 

  I'm now looking forward to getting around and visiting everyone over the next little while.

Monday's Post - random bits and pieces!

Hello!

Easter time came and went pretty quickly here, and today I'm looking through our pics as we thoroughly enjoyed a visit from our Dear Son, so lots of lovely moments to treasure. 

I'd like to share a few:

Chocolate for breakfast...

Ahhh, power!!  I had two pairs of willing helpers to do my bidding lol ;D)
A production line to prepare lots of apples for the food dehydrator .... ↯ I cracked the whip mercilessly, [evil laugh] ha ha ↯

...  also, manpower to mix the crumble topping for Apple Crumbles.  Some for tummies, others for the freezer:

... a few dabs of butter and then into the oven

Meanwhile, I sat idly by playing with the remains of easter egg tin foil... 👯

I did label this post "random bits and pieces" ... so I'm jumping to the subject of our chooks now.

Henny Penny (the feral chook who stayed... previous post here), is on the far left.  She now allows the latest additions to the chook yard (1 Cockerel and 4 Hens) to be within less than a few metres of her!  Took a few months, but she kind of confirmed our thoughts that she was pretty lonely by herself, even though she enjoyed the safety of our yard.

A rare occurrence, Henny Penny and Rooster sharing a possible tid bit!

Feathers now spring to mind!!  and thought I'd include my feather collection to date in this post:

Some are from the chooks, others from Cockatoos and Galahs and even more that I can't identify.

Well, that sums up everything up for the moment.

I hope your Easter time was a happy and peaceful time, doing whatever took your fancy.

A lovely break and some paintings ~ Paint Party Friday!

Hello everyone, thanks so much for all your sweet comments on my last post.  I really appreciate your time taken to visit and leave a message.

thankyou ☺

While on the bloggie-break we had a lovely visit from one of our darling granddaughters.
It's so nice to enjoy those moments in life, chatting, laughing, relaxing, eating and laughing some more!  I'd like to share a little compilation photo of some of them:

 L - R:  Hooning on the oldies' scooter,

watching the Australian Beach Games at Lakes,

coming to the rescue and selfie-ing with the oldies
(ha ha, because Grandma couldn't do
it properly..."wah wah, too much glare on the screen")

washing up... (giving us a holiday too!)

and a Papa's Coffee on the verandah early morning"

Paint Party Friday!

I'm so late for this week's Party  and the only recent  things I've painted are cards which haven't reached their intendeds yet. So, first of all, I hunted through my journals and found the beginnings of this painting which I shall enter as a work in progress.

I sketched this back in October 2014:

and after painting in the background, that was as far as I got.

I love the leaves nearly as much as the flowers, and will make an effort to finish it.

Here's a little painting inspired by Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss".
Apart from that inspiration, it has its beginnings from many emotions.  I painted it in 2012 and it took over a year to complete.
It went up and down in my "satisfaction" scale lol, at times it was a way to merely use up leftover paint, but it now hangs in our bedroom and we both enjoy it.  I'd taken some wip pics at the time and shall share them as well:

"With Child"
(Inspired by Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss")

Work in Progress Pics:

Joining in with Paint Party Friday (even if it's on a Saturday lol), really revs up the creative whatnots.
Click on this link and see what's happening over there too:

 I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone during this next week. 

Take a moment for an overload of cuteness - our sweet granddaughters....

A video posted by Nat Hines (@natnatanna) on Feb 9, 2017 at 5:09am PST

Sharing Happy Moments

Isn't it lovely to be able to share a good dose of  joy!  

One of our sweet granddaughters, N, has been busy creating smiles of joy on the faces of all who know her and we (MD and I) proudly share some photos with her kind permission.

Recently N graduated from Year 12 and here she is looking so very elegant and graceful:

💕 One of the things that impressed me on that special day was that, before she left home for her busy schedule of the Formal proceedings, N made a point of including a young girl who lives in the neighbourhood, in some of her photos.  The young girl was so shy, but absolutely thrilled to have her photo taken beside N. 

We've all had those shy moments at some point in our lives haven't we... kindness always begets kindness 💕

Those who have been following my blog, may recall I posted over two years ago of N's generosity in donating a length of her hair to be used in the making of real-hair wigs for women with cancer. 

Here's N with her donation back then:

Now, with a lot of hair-growing since,  N decided to add some colour to her life in this most gorgeous way.  Again, her joyous attitude to life is infectious!

We love it Dear N... 

enjoy your beautiful long blue hair... can imagine it swirling around  :D)

~ Cheerio for now, thank you for taking the time to read this post.  

May you experience unexpected kindnesses in your life ~